J.T Tran- The World Renowned Pick Up Artist pt 1

I got to have a LONG chat with J.T Tran of the ABC’s of Attraction.

While I’ll be the first to admit that as a woman I’m skeptical of the idea of Pick Up Artists.  My only exposure to them being VH1 and one unfortunate incident that ended with me doing very bad things to the bed of a certain NYU student (I will totally buy you new bed sheets if we ever meet again) , it was interesting to hear everything he had to say about race, prejudice and the art of attracting women.

So , first and foremost what the hell is Pick Up Artistry and why is it an art?

Well the pick up arts is that art, if you will, of going out and meeting beautiful women. There are different ways to go about it, different styles. Some are more indirect; some more direct but its basically teaching men how to talk to women. How to be more successful.

And as much as we want to say there’s all this evolutionary psychology and other psychological understandings of women, honestly I would be LUCKY if I could say I understood women 40% so there’s a art to it as much as a science.   It has to be an art because every person you come across during a human interaction, will have a thousand variables to their personality.  So yeah each woman on the macro level might have some similarities but when you’re actually there talking each and every woman is going to be an individual.   So its human interaction art.

Okay, Why is there a distinction between pick up artist and “Asian” Pick Up Artist?

Well I actually posted about this recently on my blog, in our industry there’s the seduction community, which is decently sized, it’s growth is a reaction to the changing times and dating scene with equal rights and that kind thing. So the Pick Up Arts, Seduction and dating community has grown.

Its pretty big industry and when I was getting into this business, like a decade or so ago, no one really had a clue how to deal with racism or prejudice.  I can remember encountering it one night from both a guy and a girl at the same time.  It was one of the most roughest things I’ve ever experienced.  I literally went home and cried.

One girl was just absolutely racist against Asians, the guy was a friend of a friend that just kept constantly making fun of me, saying Asians have small penises and whatever.  So I went online looking for answers for how do you deal with this.   And ever one of them told me it was basically my fault. If I had enough game racism or prejudice wouldn’t matter.  Basically the dating community didn’t fault the racist person but the ethnic person for not having enough game to overcome their racism.

They tried to convince me that if I tried hard enough I would develop some kind of Jedi mind tricks to make racism disappear.

That’s the most backwards thing I’ve ever heard.

Tell me about right, (laughs) that’s impossible.  That’s why I started distinguishing myself.  Also the pick up community itself is kind of like a venn diagram you take the dating community and the Asian community, I’m in the middle where they meet, the Asian PUA community.

The seduction community as a whole is pretty much all white owned, they aren’t as cognizant of the needs of their ethnic constituents even though Asian men form 33% of the gross revenue of their industry.

We’re only 4% of the American population but these companies, 33% of their salary comes from Asian Americans and they’re dismissive of it. That’s why there’s a need for the Asian PUA not just as a need for themselves but the community as a whole.

If you look at a lot of Asian American forums there’s almost always going to be a PUA subset so there’s a lot of demand internally and externally.

So in getting ready to talk to you I’ve been asking a lot of my friends about you , sort of a informal research and I had some surprisingly strong reaction from my Asian male friends. What would you say to the accusation that you stereotype Asian men as socially awkward and un-datable?

I think it’s like how Asian Americans have higher rates of depression, even though going to see mental health professionals is lower than the norm.  Depression among Asian American women is pretty high but they don’t go to doctors at the same rate as say White women do.

So the thing is this issue exists, you can say by shinning light on it creates these stereotypes but the problem exists whether or not I’m doing this.  It is a pretty prevalent problem.  Like I said before Asian Americans are 4% of the population, 4 out of 100, let’s say there is a PUA convention next week or two weeks, and 500 people show up, over 100 people there will be Asian American.   Regardless of if I’m here doing this or not there’s obviously a problem or an issue.

I think its more people not liking something they see in themselves so when someone shines a light on it and offers a solution they say its exacerbating it when in fact this is just the issue ad these are solutions. The problems are still going to exist regardless.

The proof is in the pudding, I go to these events and I speak, or see other people speak, and there are times even with White speakers were over 50% of the audience is Asian American.  So again, there’s a problem, if they choose to ignore it all it will do ultimately is harming Asian Americans as a whole.

There are statistics to back it up; I’m not creating this a stereotype of reinforcing it just providing a solution for it.

Continued in Part two